al-jazeera where every. type of book as a whole is it alison whether online we were in hurricane winds full almost like thirty six hours these are the things that u.p.a. has to address or if you join us on set. but. a relationship based is a dialogue tweet us with hostile a.j. stream and one of your pitches might make the next show join the global conversation at this time on al jazeera. iraqi forces say they've seized a crucial military base near kirkuk as their advance on kurdish peshmerga positions .

this is al jazeera live from doha. also ahead catalonia leader feel sick hour five if the region has declared independence saying he wants more talks with the spanish government the philippines army announces a major victory in the battle against isolating fighters in the south and. anger and sorrow somalis are in mourning after at least two hundred seventy six people were killed in a bombing in mogadishu. thank you for joining us the iraqi military says its forces have captured the k. one base from kurdish forces just outside the city of kirkuk the iraqi army and allied forces are advancing on the city and have also taken a gas facility to the south coke is a disputed area and the kurdish regional government believes it should be part of

its territory for it has more from erbil in northern iraq. we understand that this offensive is focused on oil fields to the north west the self all of the oil rich city of kirkuk and also the k. one military base q on military bases taking control of board kurdish peshmerga in two thousand and fourteen of to the iraqi army fled an offensive. in other world news just hours before a deadline from the spanish government catalonia as leader has failed to declare if he is region plans to secede from spain madrid had given callus bridge mont until monday to see if he would declare independence after a ban secession referendum earlier this month the catalan president has sent a letter to the spanish government calling for a meeting with the prime minister mariano rajoy in the letter he also says my first request is to reverse the repression against the catalan people and government my second request is to set up

a meeting as soon as possible so that we can discuss the first agreements my government's priority says is to seek a path to dialogue with our utmost intensity we've got correspondents covering this story from madrid and barcelona paul brennan is in the spanish capital for as we begin with you paul we were expecting to hear from the deputy prime minister of spain worse a government response to this letter going to be. yes the deputy prime minister was due to speak about half an hour ago but for some reason that news conference has not happened yet but it may be the reason why is because the prime minister mariano to hoyle has been called away or has called himself a way up to in the northwest of spain where wildfires are running right at the moment three people have died and that's his home region so he's all right there a bit of an unwelcome distraction i think from the masses of the catalonian independence efforts but certainly that's where he's going and that may be the

reason why the deputy prime minister's statement has been delayed but what we have had is initial reactions from the government here in madrid to the letter from the . what they're saying is basically the foreign minister said that the. response does not give the clarity that madrid wants the justice minister said that the letter doesn't answer the central question of yes or no as to whether independence was actually called back after that referendum and therefore it's not valid the letter from the man is not valid so it's clear that the government is giving no quarter whatsoever it sees the position very clearly that it's the catalans who have to blink first that the madrid government feels that the that situation catalan has created is illegal and unconstitutional and i think the reality is we are moving closer rather than further away from the prospect of article one hundred

fifty five being declared later on this week in his letter. to talk about the fate of two officers and politicians who are due to appear in court in madrid today they're accused of sedition what are we expecting i know you're at the caught there what are we expecting to happen. well they they've appeared in court before they are in court over my shoulder the green glass building you can see over my shoulder is the is the national court here they arrived. about half an hour before court was due to start they are faced with sedition charges although they're mounting a defense that the sensually the goddess of ill who they are accused of not supporting adequately during the protests on september the twentieth they're saying the guardians civil did not give them sufficient notice in order for the cuts alone catalonian police forces to assist them so that they are pleading not guilty that said the fact that they're in court at all gives you an indication that this could

just be the start of a legal process if things go the way they are looking like going these will be the first but certainly not the last catalan independence leaders who are going to be facing legal processes thank you very much for that whole now we're going to take you to the press conference by spain's deputy prime minister soraya sciences santa maria who is going to be speaking after the letter sent by the leader of catalonia asking for dialogue with spain's prime minister mariano rajoy. been giving a had been given a deadline of eight g.m.t. this monday to say whether or not catalonia had declared independence from spain after the controversial referendum that was held on october the first let's listen to spain's deputy prime minister. i'd like to say that the president of the spanish government has responded to that letter some method by mr put him on his morning.

we will give you the letter at the end of this press conference. to comment on the current situation i'd like to say the following firstly the government regrets that the president of the cotton and government has this either not to respond to the request by the spanish government last wednesday. i think it wasn't very difficult to say yes or no whether or not he had declared their independence up was the question and i don't think it was too complicated to give an answer. on such an important issue we asked and we only asked for clarity to extend uncertainty and will only favor those that wish to put an end to peaceful quiet interest and to continue with. your project the government hopes that. in the following hours up until the next deadline on thursday.

mr put on one will the clarity that all the citizens demand under the rule of law requires we can't understand this perseverance and confusion unless he's doing that to respond to me that the months of the most radical groups. and to take the situation to the limit. to reflect on the idea of dialogue. i think no one believes that mr. calls for dialogue and at the same time he doesn't wish to take part in debate in parliament. when he has been imposing his there's a chanst to hold of said it to all citizens. the spanish government responds. the endorsement of the majority of the parliament and in this

majority invites mr puts them on to this cause all these issues in our main chamber that is the congress. we think mr freedom on has an opportunity to rectify and to be clear to return it to legality. and to present his proposals where mediation light in our country which is in the congress no one is against dialogue but dialogue should happen within the law with the utmost clarity and in the congress where all the as it isn't are represented. one cannot demand one has to practice dialogue. and the clarity the cities and this is the minimum that we need to reach some understanding and. if we ignore a petition if we hide information from our citizens if we follow the demands of

radical groups and we then hear the call for coexistence we can believe on our call for dialogue mr cord someone has the chance to resolve the situation and he has to say whether or not he declared independence. never before has it been so easy to give an answer yes or no and never has it been that easy to follow the constitution and he questioned it. yes that's thrown by. the deadline for thursday is that like ok two is not longer to respond but rather to throw the declaration of independence is that correct. you understand then that. independence has been declared right and then. based on that letter.

could you comment on any measures that you may take on thursday. in the it. there were to date lines by the government one to say whether or not the dependent had been declared that made remind you the speech that the president gave and the document that he and other members of the catalan parliament signed he should have answered to that question he has not given an answer therefore we proceed to the next step in that formal request by the spanish government we understand their father but he has to we throw that declaration that is if he insists on you not responding to our request. maybe he doesn't have to with the other the clarification because it hasn't been proclaimed but he has to answer yes or no. sometimes we feel that some

of the most radical groups that support mr puts them on. and warned us to start explaining the measures that section one five five involves but i would like to remind something to mr puts the mond something that the president says very clearly section one five five four five constitution does not aim to suspend self-government but rather that self-government is conducted within the law that is according to the constitution and to the started. mr puts him on. his other the other parties have suspended somehow the autonomy so the idea is to return to legality to respect the right for everybody to respect opposition in parliament and to respect autonomy within the constitution and the different

regional started. i think it's important that we. insist on the fact that we put forward a very simple question and therefore to tizi to answer to that question. in the next three days. he should go via all he could go via to acting sensitivity and. bear in mind the citizens in catalonia and in the rest of pain we cannot keep citizens in such uncertainty what we demand from everybody is to respect the law and then we have to be frank with our proposals if we cannot say yes or no to what people are asking. this means that mr prince a man has

a serious problem not only in terms of upholding the law but also in terms of the citizens that are demanding clarity. hi we've been listening to the spanish deputy prime minister soraya sensei's santamaria responding to the letter sent earlier this monday by the catalan leader carla spurgeon mont in which he asks for dialogue with the central government in madrid after the cuts alone your region overwhelmingly voted for secession from spain in a controversial referendum on october the first the spanish government i remind you had given catalonian leaders until eight g.m.t. this monday to say whether or not they had declared independence he didn't do that earlier today but instead sent a letter to the central government in madrid asking for dialogue and this here is the government in madrid responding to that letter the deputy prime minister saying that the government regrets that puts him on ties refused to respond to the

question by the spanish government on whether or not he had declared independence she said another deadline of thursday had been issued by the central government in which poor jim aren't needed to clarify his position on the question of dialogue miss soraya sense of santa maria said that the spanish government is not against the idea of dialogue but dialogue should happen within the law and in the congress let's bring in our correspondent paul brennan who is in madrid for us who's been listening in to this press conference as well we heard the deputy prime minister say paul that. could go back to acting sensibly this is her own words what does the spanish government one take me today from the leaders of catalonia. very simply they want clarity they want to know yes or no did the council own leadership independence or not because they

stormed the next legal processes than fall into place that the deadline of thursday which is search to withdraw or. directly. dependence is there and you heard in the deputy prime minister's announcement just now that thursday's deadline will stand regardless of whether or not mr bustamante. the government by declaring yes or no to the question of whether he actually declared independence so very firm statement from the deputy prime minister very much to mr bruce the man's court and i won't call it frustration but the stating point blank that it's up to him to say yes or no clarify paul before we let you go on this deadline of various day what does the spanish government what does the madrid government want to exactly from which amount is it i new deadline to say whether or not they have declared independence or a deadline to withdraw their declaration of independence that they signed.

that what we what we had very briefly the smalling was the deadline for him to. whether he had declared independence or not thursday is the deadline for him to withdraw that and if that doesn't happen if he doesn't withdraw that then there's the madrid government will proceed on the basis that independence has been declared and they will trigger the beginning of the quite long process to invoke article one five five and that process will then go through cabinets and parliament and various other measures it won't happen immediately but so thursday is the date for pushed wanted to basically back down ok thank you very much for that let's get the view from barcelona. capital for a psni of you heard the response from the spanish government to the letter sent by carlos put to mount the ball now is in their camp what are they going to do what are they going to say. yes it's political ping pong or tennis isn't it the ball is now back here in barcelona and we possibly could hear

from mr pearce them all a bit later on in the day although that key letter was sent to the. government first thing this morning setting out a series of parameters and a series of requests coming from barcelona was towards they see. if this situation is going to move forward successfully in any way whatsoever among the requests for negotiations and talks there was also a request for the withdrawal of around twelve thousand national police who are based here in catalonia and also and then to the prosecution of four key alarms two senior police officers to offices to senior figures of civil society organizations that are charged with sedition and a sentence of fifteen years could possibly come their way if they are found guilty of that so i think what we're going to see now is a period of thinking time perhaps we haven't heard directly from the prime minister

mariano rajoy as we heard there from paul brennan he's currently busy in dealing with the forest fires there it does to some extent perhaps move the goalpost a little bit yes we've heard a lot about deadlines what exactly happens next is very very unclear hopefully somebody who can help us through this is a political analyst here in catalonia i can see you laughing it's all very young can you give us the following statement by the deputy prime minister how you think the capital and government will respond i would just use what you just said it's like a political ping pong and that's. because we just hope and waiting every time to hear what's the next reaction it seems the. vice president or the deputy prime minister ha soft and a little bit to tone. in that format but also in the content and that opens the window that we were just saying that there could be some mediation beneath but the

fact that it has been hair. the whole tone of her intervention like trying to remind put someone things and like she's always there. in the way he speaks but i think it left like some more space until thursday it gave some more room to. move now so i'm hoping this really mediation been a thought ok so in your thank you very much so the goalposts may have moved slightly we're not seeing a very hostile serious turn apparently towards mr putin it is now his role and his duty to respond whether that be instantaneously or whether that be in a few days' time. sorry thank you very much for that. let's turn our attention now to other world news and we've just heard that the construction of more illegal israeli settlements has been approved in hebron in the occupied west bank thirty one new settlements have been given the go ahead there have almost four thousand homes although settlement construction has been going on for years this is

the first sign israel civil administration have given authorisation for construction in hebron in fifteen years harry fawcett is in hebron forus in the occupied west bank self quite a significant decision harry talk of what led to this decision and what's going to be happening. last night if you think about thirty one housing units at first blush it doesn't seem like a huge number but that is to miss the point of all this this is an extremely controversial place for any settlement construction people that settlers and palestinians live cheek by jowl right in the middle of the old city of hebron it is a place where they have clashed repeatedly in the past and the kinds of people and activist who is telling me that would want to come to live here in an illegal settlement in hebron a just the kinds of people who have extremist right wing views more likely to continue that situation there's also the question of the restrictions on movement

restrictions on electricity that people here complain of in terms of the settlements that already exists already there are several hundred israeli settlers who live within hebron this adds to that and as you say it is the first time that this is happening this kind of announcement of approval of such a plan since two thousand and two it is on land which was designated to be a bus station under jordanian rule before the nine hundred sixty seven war and so there are legal challenges that could be brought against it because there is a question over the legality of once the israelis move what is currently a military base out of there and designated as they are for housing construction will that be legally sustainable under the complex web of. which pertain here in hebron and as you say this is part of a wider picture we're expecting in the next day or two hundreds of further announcements of plans being approved at various stages of that process up to three

thousand eight hundred such settlement units that would make a total of six thousand five hundred so far this year and if you compare that to previous years in twenty fifteen there were less there are fewer than two thousand approvals in twenty sixteen or two thousand seven hundred so if this is what some people on the right in israel say is then being reigned in design extent by the trumpet ministration it doesn't feel like that here in the occupied west bank carrie thank you very much for that harry fossett live for us in hebron. the philippines military says two senior isolating to commanders have been killed in fighting in the southern city of merari is kneel on happy lawn lead the group which sees parts of the city in may his fighters were helped by the mouth a group one of its leaders has also been killed government forces have been fighting the armed group for control of merari for several months now let's go live to linda gun who is in the forest i mean i understand that the philippines army has been speaking to reporters holding a press conference there what have they said. well basically they

describe the deaths of these two leaders as the end of an era these see that this in fact signals that the attempt to set up a caliphate here in the philippines particularly in the mindanao region is remote these see that basically this means that it will take some time before a leader can emerge and that their supporters might in fact defect towards the government is something that they see is bittersweet fully because the price to pay for this is high more than one hundred sixty soldiers have died over a thousand people have been killed including on the side of the forces and basically morale week is pretty much in ruins after more than four months of fighting what about the overall situation in the country the ongoing battle against on groups like abu sayyaf where do these killings leave that battle.

well it definitely puts into question the ability of the mid the philippine military to handle all the threats it's facing it's facing war on so many fronts the fight against the mountain is just one there is still an ongoing battle against the communist rebellion in different parts of the philippines there is still that very precarious peace deal with the more islamic liberation front and of course there are other smaller groups here that is the end to be also quite critical you know there's another group called the bangsamoro islamic freedom movement also pledged allegiance to i so it's supported members of them outta here and both the m.i.l.f. and the state forces continue to battle it out in different parts of the region particularly in magadan the province but according to the secretary of national defense he says what is important now is that lessons have been learned that they will not make sure that they will make sure that this will not happen again there are many indications here but more importantly the focus on radicalism on looking at what's being done when it comes to educating those in mosques in islamic schools

in making sure the communities are involved and also that the young are not easily recruited into radical groups like them out there but of course this is just the beginning fully because the fighting is not yet over there are discussions that the liberation of murder we will be this week but there is still no commitment there's still several fighters battling it out against the forces and hostages are still with them in the gun reporting there live from our in the southern city of philippine thank you very much. to somalia which is declared three days of national mourning after at least two hundred seventy six people were killed in the worst bombing in the country in recent years it happened at a crowded intersection in the capital mogadishu is still not clear who is responsible catherine story reports from nairobi in neighboring kenya. people in somalia's capital mogadishu trying to come to terms with one of the worst car bomb attacks ever a truck bomb exploded outside

a hotel. at an intersection lined with government offices restaurants and shops hours later a second blast struck another business district in the city most of the buildings in those areas have been destroyed the still being pulled out of the rubble president mohammed up to live from a jew visited the scene and his government has declared three days of mourning. the target of these terrorist is not government officials but civilians as you see here there are no government buildings only civilians who are going about their daily life we have to come together and fight these monsters until we eradicate them from our country and speaking to our jazeera the united nations deputy special envoy to somalia say despite such attacks the security situation around the country has improved a great efforts have been made by the government to particularly secure the city but also other areas in in the country but nevertheless when one is desperate

enough to get through these kind of things do happen and we've seen it yet again into mali unfortunately doctors are doing their best with limited resources to deal with the many people who have the injured dozens are in critical condition several have lost limbs so. what happened yesterday was incredible i have never seen such a thing before and the death toll is uncountable corpses were burned and no one could recognize them. attacks on soft targets like markets and restaurants have become common in somalia and what sets this one apart is just how large it was and the devastation it has caused right now people are in shock hospital supplies like blood are i did he needed many are wondering how someone was able to drive a year called packed with explosives into the heart of the city catherine so. narrow the kenyan. conservative leader sebastian curtis has claimed victory in the general election are just. thirty one he'll be the world's youngest leader his

people's party won more than thirty one percent of the vote but he will need to form a coalition government the outcome of sunday's election marks a shift to the right in austrian politics. in venezuela where the electoral board has announced the president's socialist party has won most of the governorships in regional elections nicolas maduro is hailing the result as and phatic victory but the outcome has sparked accusations of fraud from the opposition traceable has the latest some. who are here at the opposition headquarters in caracas where members of the opposition have just announced that they're not acknowledging sunday's results they're saying that they have completely different figures from their own the headquarters in different parts of the cities and that they want a full audit into the electoral process here they're all so asking their supporters and candidates to take back to the streets to put pressure on the government overall the opposition have won in six states and the government has kept the rest

the big surprise here is the state of media unless the governor of florida is going to get up really affect he leader of the opposition and former presidential candidate earlier today to address the nation he asked the opposition to acknowledge the results he's saying that they are acknowledging that they lost in several states he also threatened with the jail time to some key opposition figures and he also said that the governors elected this sunday will have to be sworn in at the constitutional assembly this is something that most of the people here among the opposition are saying will not happen because so far the opposition has months chained that the constitutional assembly that was elected three months ago is not constitutional and is not legal. this is al jazeera and these are our top stories this hour. the iraqi military says

its forces have captured the k. one airbase from kurdish forces in carrick coke they also say they've taken control of the city's airport the iraqi army and allied forces are advancing peshmerga forces have control of the area since the iraqi army fled eyesores advancing twenty forty. just hours before a deadline from the spanish government catalonia as leader has failed to declare if his region grants to secede from spain in a letter to the central government he asked for dialogue madrid had given him on until monday to see whether he would proclaim independence after a ban secession referendum earlier this month spain's deputy prime minister says the government regress. response. that i know that i did it through you do not want this tunnel to get him in on such an important issue we only asked for clarity to extend uncertainty will only favor those who wish to end peaceful coexistence and to continue with the poor project the government hopes that in the following hours

up until the next step line on thursday mr put your mind will give the clarity to all citizens demand and the rule of law requires we can't understand his perseverance and confusion unless he's doing that to meet the demands of the most radical groups these really government has approved the construction of jewish settlements in hebron in the occupied west bank thirty one new settlements have been approved there will have almost four thousand homes the settlements are illegal under international law it's the first time the government has given official approval in fifteen years the philippines defense minister says two senior isolates commanders have been killed in fighting in the southern city of the abu sayyaf and now to groups have been in control of parts of the city since may. the number of people killed in saturday's truck bombing in somalia has risen to two hundred seventy six it's still not known who carried out the attack but the government is blaming the armed group al-shabaab hundreds of people have been protesting against some of of the violence in the capital mogadishu. and venezuela

as the electoral board has announced the president's socialist party has won most of the governorships in regional elections but the outcome has fought to accusations of fraud from venezuela's opposition you're up to date with the headlines on al-jazeera witness is up next to stay with us. china is holding what appears to be its most significant communist party congress in decades with president xi jinping keen to consolidate his power but what does that mean for this country and indeed the rest of the world join me adrian brown live coverage and analysis here here on .